


Heaven Is What You Make Of It.

by CaffeinaShips



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9602249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeinaShips/pseuds/CaffeinaShips
Summary: Charlie Bradbury has been stabbed to death. A tragedy, no doubt. At least Charlie is making the best of a Heavenly situation.





	1. Charlie's Adventures in Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting this first chapter before the draft expires. The second chapter is very close to being finished. The third chapter is... only a sentence so far. But I have lofty plans.

Charlie had to admit, begrudgingly, that Heaven was pretty great. Waking up dead wasn't great, getting stabbed to death wasn't great, but after some initial suspicion Heaven turned out to be a cool place to hang out after all. In Heaven, day and night are tied to the memory you're in at any particular moment, so almost immediately Charlie lost her sense of time. Everything had a pleasant, dreamy quality to it. On first arrival, Charlie lay in bed and listened to her parents read The Hobbit four times through. There is no necessity in Heaven, so eating and sleeping are for pleasure and at the soul's discretion. Charlie snuggled into her childhood pillow and asked her parents to keep reading. And asked and asked. And they always did. When they got to the end she asked them to start over. And they always did. After that Charlie wandered the timeline of her life. She mapped out all of the stops in her brain like a subway map. She followed it as far as she could and then back again. Once she knew what to expect, once she understood the process of moving from memory to memory, she relaxed. The idea of spending eternity in a choose-your-own adventure of her greatest hits didn't seem so bad.

Of course she was still Charlie, so she pretty much immediately started testing limits. She changed little things, like what they ate for Thanksgiving, by asking her parents for new foods, new books, or a Playstation 4. They generally went out and got them. Initially she'd been surprised to find that the name Charlie Bradbury followed her to Heaven. Everyone, even her parents, called her Charlie. She figured it was because that was the identity that felt the most true to her. It was a pretty sweet life overall, surrounded by loved ones, good books, video games, eating and sleeping when the mood struck her, and wandering through her timeline. She had the whole expanse of her life in front of her, from her earliest memories to her last days at the bunker. Oz was even in there, if she wanted to go. 

Heaven was pretty great and then it got better. During a lovely summer afternoon Charlie was riding her bike down a country road with her best friend from when she was 10-years-old. They were flying fast, free, and happy. The sun was shining and the breeze was blowing their hair back as they raced each other down the middle of the road. Charlie loved this memory. There were few feelings as blissful in her life as that early freedom a bicycle granted her. This road was between Charlie's childhood home and her best friend Jenny's home. They would ride the fifteen minutes back and forth from each other's houses all day, just to have a reason to keep riding. Ten-year-old Charlie didn't have the language to label her friendship with Jenny as her first real crush, but Charlie had thought the world of Jenny. Charlie and Jenny had been inseparable before the accident that took away Charlie's parents. Today, Charlie was reveling in the innocence and the joy of this period of her life. 

At the bottom of a little hill where the road straightened out, they flew past a stranger by the side of the road. A middle aged brunette woman was standing calmly, watching them. If this hadn't been Heaven Charlie would have crashed her bike for sure. She stopped her bike in the middle of the road and immediately turned around to peddled back toward the mystery woman who continued to smile at Charlie as if they were old friends. This was her tenth trip down this hill in a row and this woman had never been there before. Yet here she was, in jeans, a tee, and an open button-up shirt. She stopped in front of the stranger, her friend forgotten, and dropped her bike. The woman smiled warmly.

"Hello, Charlie"

Charlie stared. It had been so long since she'd seen a stranger, her people skills had gotten a bit rusty. The stranger held out her hand and Charlie shook it.

"My name is Ellen. I believe we have some friends in common. I'm here to show you around Heaven."

"Friends...in common?"

"Yep," Ellen's smile broadened. "The Winchesters"

Charlie laughed a little. It'd been a while since she thought of Sam and Dean. Now she hoped they were holding up.

"Oh yeah, we're friends. They got me killed in fact."

"That happens to a lot of us. Come on, I'll introduce you."

Ellen stepped behind a nearby maple tree and out of sight. Charlie followed, now VERY curious. Behind the tree there was a rectangle of white. Charlie looked around it and behind it. She definitely had never seen anything like this in Heaven before. It seemed impossibly thin, invisible from the side, and, from behind, it disappeared. You could only see it if you were facing it directly. Ellen stuck her head out of it, creating the effect of a disembodied head and half a torso.

"You coming?"

Charlie didn't need another invite, she stepped through. 

As soon as Charlie stepped through the box of light, she was hit by the sound of people erupting into cheers and applause. They were in a seedy looking bar half full of strangers. Most of them were grinning at her.

"Don't worry about them," Ellen grinned and gestured around the room. "It's always exciting when we get a new face around here. We've been aware of your death for some time," Ellen explained. "We always keep an eye out for deaths associated with the Winchesters. When we get one we generally wait a bit of time to let them adjust, and then we pick 'em up and introduce ourselves. We've got something of an informal club going. Can I get you a drink?"

"These are all people connected to Sam and Dean?" Charlie was of course aware that they had tragic back stories, but seeing a big collection of their dead friends and family all in one place kind of hit it home for her. 

"Sure are!" 

A pretty young blond woman was half sitting on a table to Charlie's right. 

"Charlie, meet my daughter Jo. Jo, honey, this is Charlie Bradbury."

Jo shook Charlie's hand warmly as Ellen headed behind the bar.

"Those Winchesters leave quite a body count in their wake. Lucky for us, this is Heaven, and there are no grudges in Heaven. You have to stay angry to hold a grudge, and it's not like we mind being here. Especially when we have a new member in our little group." 

Charlie definitely noticed how pretty she was when she smiled. 

Ellen returned with a beer for Charlie and began introductions. She assured Charlie no one expected her to remember everyone the first time. She reminded Charlie that she had an eternity to get to know everyone. There were a lot of people around the bar: playing poker, playing pool, drinking, laughing, and talking. There was even one monster. A woman named Amy Pond. She explained that she never ate people, tried to do the right thing, and managed through sheer force of will to turn her soul human enough. Charlie met Rufus, Jess, and Mary and John Winchester. She met many others. Hunters, civilians, and family. Everyone shook her hand or patted her on the back. Mary hugged her. They did seem genuinely pleased to meet another Winchester associate. While she enjoyed meeting everyone, there were two she clicked with immediately.

The first was Ash. When Charlie was introduced to Ash, Ellen called him "our resident Heaven hacker" which was a very intriguing title to Charlie. Ash seemed to have a chaotic work space on an old pool table in the back of the bar. There were a variety of computer monitors, old TV's, and pieces of disassembled equipment spread all over it. He had been hunched over what appeared to be an old 90's era computer monitor watching symbols flash by and taking copious notes. When he turned to face her she was put off for half a second by the mullet and the shirt with the sleeves ripped off. He shook her hand.

"I've been waiting for another genius to show up and help me with my mayhem, and from what I've heard you're my girl!" He actually used finger guns, which Charlie found weirdly endearing. "When you're settled and ready, come find me and I'll teach you how to do some damage here."

Very intriguing to Charlie.

Once introductions were complete Charlie went directly back to Ash to ask him about the symbols on his monitor. Ash, true to his word, let her in on his mayhem. Charlie and Ash were both brilliant, creative, tech-minded people who were always in trouble and never did what others expected. They both loved testing systems and getting around rules. Ash taught her Enochian right away. Ash explained to her that Heaven ran something like a self-sustaining virtual reality using Enochian magic words instead of binary code. He taught her that Enochian had three forms: written, spoken, and prayer, and that each had their own benefits and disadvantages. He showed her how he used Enochain to rig up a screen to alert them to the death of another Winchester connection and to pinpoint the location of that Heaven. He taught her to create the doors that allowed people to move from their own Heavens to The Roadhouse and back again. 

Each Heaven connected to a Winchester would have a door embedded in it somewhere, and the door on The Roadhouse side could identify souls and would open into the corresponding Heavens. In that way, people traveled between The Roadhouse and 'Home'. That's what they all called their personal Heavens. Someone would throw down their cards or finish their drink and announce "alright, that's it for me. I'm heading Home, see ya later" and leave. People were coming and going all the time. Charlie fell into this habit as well. She would pop into The Roadhouse via the door by the side of the road, stay for a little while, and then head 'Home' to see her parents, hang out with friends, or just take a little break from all the activity at The Roadhouse. 

Ash explained to Charlie that The Roadhouse was actually four Roadhouses. The actual Roadhouse had been much smaller than the one that Charlie was used to. After Ash learned of the deaths of Ellen and Jo he had immediately visited each of them in their Heavens. He wasn't surprised to find them sitting in Roadhouses identical to his. Once he started Heaven hopping with Jo and Ellen, they quickly located Ellen's husband William. He, of course, also had a Roadhouse. Ash came up with the idea to find a way to overlap the separate Heavens to create one large Roadhouse. It was a tricky thing, Ash told Charlie, to bend and twist a whole Heaven without distorting the rest of the time line, but obviously it could be done. And it made for a much less cramped club. 

Charlie was, obviously, a quick study and soon she and Ash created a new kind of door that would work on command. You could stand in front of it, announce whose Heaven you wanted to go to, and the door would obey. It worked on prayer, so it was more important to have a good mental picture of the person than to get their full name exactly right. In this way, hacking Heaven was different than hacking a computer. Intention and focus was as important as the correct code. It required her to adapt her approach to problem solving, but she picked it up quickly. Charlie also really enjoyed it. She really enjoyed working with Ash and having challenges. Problems to tinker with vastly improved her Heaven.

People didn't travel between each other's Heaven's much, but it was a useful skill to have. Charlie spent a lot of time in Ash's Heaven because he had a more expansive work space in a van parked behind the bar. Ash never visited Charlie's Heaven because there wasn't really anything there that interested him, and Charlie never invited him. People only really traveled to the Heavens of people they were really close with. Being in someone else's Heaven was a little like being told about someone else's dream. You really had to be invested in the person and care about them for the environment to make much sense to you. It was weird being in someone's heaven when their memories involved other people. Those memory people wouldn't really acknowledge or see you. It was the weirdest displaced feeling of unreality. Like being invisible, not just to all but one person, but to the world itself. 

Charlie and Ash put secret doors and trap doors all over Heaven. Together they invented a wrist band that looked a little like a Fitbit and would allow the wearer to move from any door to any Heaven. They even figured out a way to disguise the wearer and 'trick' Heaven into seeing them as someone else or not seeing them at all. Ash and Charlie were both acutely aware that this blissful life was a very, very elaborate virtual existence, a fact reinforced to them every time they found a new way to screw with it. They also knew that the angels had the power to pull the bliss right out of it. The angels could not dismantle Heaven entirely, but they could mangle an individual Heaven until it was a personal Hell. The few angels left in Heaven had no reason to bother them, and they had no interest in interacting with the angels, but you never know. A kind, benevolent, uninvolved dictator is a dictator none the less, and Charlie and Ash were not the sort to trust an authority.

This became all the more pronounced for Charlie when Ash showed her the FUBAR Button and told her the story of the only time he'd used it. The FUBAR button, when pressed, would separate The Roadhouse to its original four Heavens, blast every soul in The Roadhouse back to their individual Heavens, and close all the doors. Ash had created it as soon as he could after overlapping the Roadhouses. It wasn't the sort of thing he could really test, so, until relatively recently, he had just hoped it would work. 

FUBAR day came out of the blue for everyone but Bobby. Ash had noticed Bobby wasn't playing poker with Rufus, Bill Harvelle, and John like he usually would be. Instead he was sitting at the bar, just seeming to take it all in. Ash noticed this because Ash notices everything, but Ash didn't make anything of it. After a couple hours of quietly watching the bar, Bobby had turned to leave without saying a word and walked out the door. A couple hours later Ash's angel radio had burst into action. 

"Holy Shit!" Ash had announced, "Holy Shit!"

He began frantically translating as much as he could as fast as he could for the increasingly appalled and bewildered crowd. 

"There's been a prison break in Heaven. Someone stole Metatron! It was Bobby! Bobby created some kind of distraction. Shit! The Angels have Bobby! They're sticking him in Angel jail and they're pissed! Oh fuck, the angels are coming, the angels are coming here!"

Ash slammed the FUBAR button and The Roadhouse broke apart. He had the space of a breath to find his bearings back in his van in his own Heaven before an angel appeared. Ash was calm as could be. He knew no one would mention the doors or The Roadhouse Club and no one had seemed to know what Bobby had been planning. The Angel asked a lot of pointed questions about the Winchesters, but Ash could legitimately say he hadn't seen or heard from them since the last time they died. He had no new info to contribute to their dilemma. And that was the truth. After the Angel left, Ash stuck close to his angel radio. He waited until he was sure the angels had moved on and lost interest, then he rebuilt the door to Ellen. She reported the same interview with an angel and nothing more, so Ash started rebuilding The Roadhouse Clubhouse. This time he was careful to work in the FUBAR button from the start. Shortly after The Roadhouse and crew were reassembled, Ellen went to introduce Charlie to The Roadhouse. They had left her in her own Heaven without contacting her longer than usual because they had to be sure they were safe once more. As far as anyone knew, and as far as Ash could tell from angel radio, Bobby was still sitting in a cell somewhere inside angel prison. 

Charlie took all of this in gravely. People would get really quiet and shake their heads when the topic of Bobby would come up. Everyone missed him, but no one knew what to do about it. Charlie still loved her Heaven and it still felt like home, but The Roadhouse felt more real to her. If Heaven was a dream she was having, at least The Roadhouse was lucid dreaming. She had no doubt the angels would take it away from her in an instant and she had no intention of giving them the chance.


	2. Life After Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie finds her way around Heaven and gets used to the place.

The second person Charlie connected with was Pamela Barnes. During the introductions at The Roadhouse, Ellen presented her to a group of four people playing darts. A friendly looking guy named Andy, a former hunter named Annie, a guy named Victor that everyone kept calling "Agent", and Pamela Barnes. The first thing Charlie saw was Pamela and Victor, their backs to Charlie and Ellen. She watched as Pamela ran a hand along Victor's arm and whispered something in his ear in an attempt to distract his shot. Whatever it was made him stand up a little straighter, but his shot was dead on. Pamela let out a groan of disappointment and smacked Victor's ass. Annie and Pamela shrugged at each other while Andy did a little happy dance.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to Charlie Bradbury?"

Ellen put her hands on Charlie's shoulders and nudged her forward slightly. Introductions were made. Hands were shook. Charlie could almost swear she saw Pamela look her over. Pamela was the last to introduce herself. She grinned at Charlie in a way that looked at once inviting and a bit predatory. Charlie was now absolutely sure Pamela was checking her out. Not even subtly, either. 

"You any good at darts? We're always looking for fresh blood to play with."

Charlie nervously pushed her hair behind her ear and smiled back.

"I've thrown a few, but I'm pretty terrible honestly."

Pamela took a drink from her beer and kept her eyes on Charlie.

"That's alright honey, I'm a good teacher. I'll get you in shape in no time."

"You might be a good teacher," 'Agent' Victor joked, "but you're a terrible shot. And it's your turn."

Pamela winked at Charlie (actually winked at her!) and turned her back to them to resume the game. Charlie let Ellen lead her on to the next table full of people and the next introduction. Charlie was flustered. This was a new development she hadn't considered. Could there be dating in Heaven? Did souls date? Apparently they flirted...

When formal introductions were complete Charlie was left curious about two things; hacking Heaven and flirting with a woman in tight jeans. As usual in Charlie's life, intellectual curiosity won out and she made her way back to Ash. Once Charlie was engrossed in learning Enochian she didn't think about much else until she understood the basics. 

After hours or days hunched over notebooks and computer screens, Ash suddenly stood up straight, stretched his arms over his head and then clapped Charlie on the back.

"You catch on really fast and that's good. But we've gotta take it easy, don't wanna fry the ole brain like this was M.I.T. Time for a break! Shots! Do you like shots? Forget I asked. Everyone likes shots."

And Ash was escorting her to the front of the bar. They sat together at the table closest to the bar. Charlie's head was buzzing with new knowledge. She felt fuzzy and slow, but she was sure she could have kept going if Ash had let her. Learning something new from scratch was so rewarding she felt driven to continue. Ash leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. Ellen appeared. 

"What can I bring you two a bottle of?"

"We'll take a bottle of your finest anything that's whiskey."

He put his hands behind his head and managed to recline further. Charlie wasn't really listening. She was tracing Enochian symbols on the table top with her finger trying to catalog and organize all of the new information in her brain. She was aware of a bottle being set on the table and a glass of brown liquid being pushed toward her. She heard the sound of chairs scraping as people sat. 

"Ya gotta take the shot," Ash chided her, "and it's rude not to look at someone during a toast. Works over for the day. Now we drink."

Charlie picked up the glass and looked at Ash. She jumped a little and splashed a bit of whiskey on her hand. Jo and Pamela had joined them at the table, and all three were looking at her. Pamela made eye contact with Charlie and raised her own shot glass.

"Cheers to our new resident genius!"

They all lifted their drinks and emptied their glasses. The whiskey tasted like whiskey, but it gave Charlie pause.

"Wait, can we even get drunk in Heaven? Do we even still metabolize alcohol? Are we drinking just for the taste?"

Ash tapped the table with his glass and pointed at Charlie.

"Good question. Intoxicants in Heaven work on prayer coding. As long as you drink, you can will yourself to be almost any amount of drunk just by wanting it. Just not a fatal amount of drunk. But you can be pretty damn blackout drunk. Believe me, I've tested the limits. You can also sober up just about immediately by wanting to be sober. No hangovers in Heaven."

Jo grabbed the bottle and started refilling everyone's glass. When she passed Pamela her shot, Pamela downed it immediately. Charlie watched as Pamela put one foot on a chair in front of her, leaned back, and emptied the glass. Oh dear. Charlie hurriedly looked away and downed her own shot. When the booze hit her mouth she focused on wanting to be pleasantly tipsy. Almost immediately she found herself smiling and feeling much warmer inside. Jo was refilling glasses again. Charlie was pretty sure the level of liquid in the bottle had not changed with the last two pours. The bottle was self-filling. 

"Ash had to teach us how to get drunk," Jo giggled a bit and looked a little flushed already. 

"We were just experiencing our memories however they were at the time. Ash figured out the key was wishing and now we're all drunks with immortal livers."

Pamela laughed. She had one of the easiest, most mirthful sounding laughs Charlie had ever heard. "That's pretty lucky for me since I died getting stabbed in my liver. I think it's earned some fun."

"Me too!" Charlie chimed in sounding to herself a little too eager.

"Well, I mean, probably. I got stabbed lots of places... in the... general ... torso area."

She took her next shot and willed her drunk level up a notch. This was definitely not her smoothest pick up and now she knew it was possible to blush in Heaven.

"Well" Pamela put her foot down and leaned across the table toward Charlie for a toast., "Here's to life after livers!"

Charlie held out her glass and Pamela clinked hers against it. They emptied their drinks again.

To Charlie's surprise it turns out everyone in Heaven loves telling their death stories. Of course everyone at the table and in the bar had heard each other's, but Charlie was new, and she would listen with fresh ears and rapt attention. And no one knew Charlie's story. They pestered Charlie to share the details and they were gratifyingly impressed.

"Wow, stabbed to death in a bathtub by a Frankenstein. Nicely done." Ash was grinning at her with what looked like pride.

"And what about you?" Charlie used the liquid courage she'd prayed for to smile at Pamela, "How'd you go out? Blaze of glory I assume?"

Pamela grinned wickedly, "Oh you know it."

The others had heard Pamela's story many times but listened politely. Charlie was suitably impressed. Stabbed by demons while saving reapers to try to prevent the apocalypse. That's pretty bad ass. 

Ash launched into his story next. It was pretty short and quick. He pointed to the back corner workbench pool table. He'd been deciphering demon signs for the Winchesters and begun to establish a pattern around the door to hell. He had his notes and maps laid out on the table trying to put the last pieces together when a booming noise and a ball of fire filled The Roadhouse. He had a brief experience of pain before sitting up in his van. "Real Dead" as Ash described it.

Jo started to tell her story, "Yeah, torn apart by a Hell Hound trying to stop the apocalypse."

Charlie was definitely impressed and wanted to know more. Jo was happy to oblige until she started trying to tell the story. "We all gathered at Bobby's house..." 

She trailed off and stopped. There was a moment of sullen silence while the three of them looked at their glasses. Charlie hated it. She had always considered herself something of a vigilante and the injustice of being imprisoned in Heaven got under her skin. It was obvious that if most of the people sitting in this room had been contacted by the Winchesters instead of Bobby they would have been sitting in Angel jail. She also hated the reminder that this utopia had serious elements of dystopia. She just wanted to be dead and happy about it. Why did she have to worry about injustice even in the afterlife?

Pamela heaved a sigh and held up her drink, "To Bobby."

"To Bobby," they echoed. 

There was another moment of silence and then Jo asked Charlie if she'd been enjoying her Heaven. Of course she had, it's Heaven. They asked her if she'd visited all of her memories yet and she confessed that she had many left. Of the four of them only Ash had been to every one of his memories so far. He had been dead the longest and he was the most intensely curious about everything. 

"I must have been to my first Ramones concert a hundred times since dying," Pamela laughed.

"I bet that was incredibly fun. I never really went to many concerts when I was alive," Charlie felt a little pang. "I guess it's a little late to be worrying about bucket lists now."

"I could take you," Pamela took her foot off the chair and leaned across the table a little.

"What, to see the Ramones?"

"Sure, why not? I've been a few times. I've got some pretty clear memories. You could come with me. You could be my date."

Pamela leaned back again and smiled.

"Of course you'd have to ignore Jesse, my actual date at the time, but that shouldn't be too hard since he mostly ignored me all night and he won't be able to see you."

Charlie took another shot and willed her drunk up a notch again, "Yeah, ok. That sounds fun."

It was fun. Stepping into someone else's heaven was incredibly disorienting at first, but Charlie quickly got used to it. In someone else's Heaven no one looks at you, no one speaks to you. You can walk through crowds or dance on a table and no one even glances. To Charlie it created the effect that Pamela was the most important thing in the world. The universe revolved around her and she seemed to stand out in every moment. Or maybe that was just Pamela. 

They left for the concert immediately. Neither were capable of being tired and there was no need to change clothes, so they both decided now was the best time. They took one last shot, Pamela put her arm around Charlie's shoulders, and they walked through the Roadhouse door and onto a strip of crumbling sidewalk somewhere that looked rundown, like a small city down on its luck. Pamela took her arm off of Charlie's shoulders and walked a step or two in front to lead the way. They turned into an alley and suddenly it was night and they were standing in front of a club. Once they were in the door Pamela took Charlie's hand to keep them together in the crowd. They staked out a spot near the front. It took Charlie forever to realize there was a thin, disheveled man walking with them. She assumed this was Jesse, but Pamela had been right, he was easy to ignore. 

After the show ended they followed Jesse out to the side of the building where he smoked a cigarette and discussed something so pointless Charlie tuned him out naturally. Pamela took Charlie's hand and rested her back against the wall. She slid her other hand under Charlie's hair and to the back of her neck. She pulled Charlie to her and kissed her. 

They walked away from the crowds exiting the concert and back to the shockingly bright sunlight of the sidewalk. Charlie spotted the familiar rectangle of white near a divey looking bar. Like the end of most first dates there was an awkward moment standing in front of the door. 

"Thanks for the concert."

"My pleasure."

"What are your plans after this?"

Pamela shrugged a little "I'm going to head home for a while. I'd love to see you again some time. I mean, I'll definitely see you at The Roadhouse, but I'd love to take you out again soon."

"Definitely. That'd be great!"

There was another awkward pause. Charlie impulsively grabbed Pamela's waist and kissed her first this time. They stepped through the door both grinning.

"See yah around," Pamela turned around and left the Roadhouse as soon as they were in. 

Charlie was unsure what to do with herself, so she went home and took a nap.

After a long rest Charlie headed back to The Roadhouse determined to master Enochian. Ash started to show her little tricks to manipulate Heaven. It was very rewarding but hard. Once she reversed the order of two words in a prayer designed to turn on a lamp and accidentally erased all light in the Roadhouse. There was a general cry from the assembled crew, but Ash corrected it quickly and everyone moved on. Charlie worked until her head was buzzing. When she finally collapsed into a chair rubbing her temples Pamela appeared next to her with a set of darts. A couple of dart lessons later and Charlie took Pamela to see The Princess Bride at the local theater from when Charlie was 15. They spent most of the movie making out like teenagers. 

They fell into an easy routine. Charlie and Ash would work until one of them declared they were done, they'd spend time with the crowd at The Roadhouse, Charlie and Pamela would go off together on a date. Charlie discovered Pamela was one of Ash's best friends in Heaven. The three of them would sit in the bar with whoever else was around, drink, joke, and laugh. Sometimes they would play darts, pool, or cards, sometimes they'd just sit mostly in silence and watch the crowds, sometimes they would swap stories from their lives. It usually wouldn't be long before Ash was itching to get back to some project he had going, or some favor he was doing someone, and Pamela and Charlie would head out into the Heavens together. 

The more Charlie and Ash created ways to work around Heaven's rules the more options Charlie and Pamela had for exploration. They often frequented the Heavens of strangers, and were able to travel to destinations, such as concerts, or scenic locations without even knowing who's Heaven they were in. They explored Niagara Falls, rain forests, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Barrier Reef. There are no sunburns in Heaven, so Charlie and Pamela spent long days swimming naked off of Caribbean beaches. 

The time they spent alone in their separate Heavens gradually shrunk to almost nothing. Pamela stepped around Charlie's parents and made herself tea in the family kitchen with a comfortable familiarity. Charlie snuggled with Pamela on the couch in Pamela's living room without giving her two older brothers a second look. Sometimes they would discuss the possibility of combining Heavens. Charlie had some ideas about running the country road of her Heaven into the rougher neighborhood sidewalk of Pamela's Heaven, but she wasn't quite brave enough to try it yet. Overall things were pretty perfect in Charlie's afterlife.

It was the end of a very long and generally successful bout of inventing. Pamela was sitting perched on Charlie's lap at a table at The Roadhouse. They'd been playing poker with John, Ash, and Rufus. Pamela and Charlie were losing badly because they were comparing cards, cheating, and not being subtle about it. The rest of the players had overheard their whispering and knew half their hands. Charlie was feeling a little tipsy and was really enjoying the game. John laughed at them over his beer.

"I haven't seen poker played that badly since the last time Bobby and I..."

There was the typical sullen silence as he trailed off. Charlie sobered up immediately. She'd been mulling this over for some time and now seemed like a good time to speak up.

"It just ain't right," Rufus was shaking his head. "Any one of us would have done the same damn thing if the Winchesters had come to us. Poor Bobby was just doing what we all know was right. Its not fair that he lost his Heaven doing what we all know was right."

Charlie shooed Pamela into her own chair and pulled herself closer to the table, "Yeah, I think I might have some thoughts on that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok well I tried. I have this temporary job which is super fun but really cuts into my writing time. The third chapter is still one sentence long. It'll happen... someday.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there's the start. The rating for the story may change as the other two chapters are posted. If you stumble upon this, please leave feedback, this is the first story I've written that isn't for a challenge or a prompt and I'm nervous.


End file.
